Ed Sheeran to guest star in Game of Thrones

Ed Sheeran will be featured as a "surprise" for cast member Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark in Game Of Thrones.

PHOTO: AFP

English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran will guest star in Season 7 of television series Game Of Thrones.

While there are no details about his role yet, the showrunners of the blockbuster show, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, said he will be featured as a "surprise" for cast member Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark and is a huge fan of the musician.

In a Variety report, Benioff was quoted as saying: "For years, we tried to get Ed Sheeran on the show to surprise Maisie and, this year, we finally did it."

He announced this on Sunday at SXSW, or South By Southwest festival, in Austin, Texas, an annual event that celebrates film, music and interactive industries.

Past seasons of the show have also featured musicians, such as Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros, Coldplay's Will Champion, Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody and heavy metal band Mastodon.

The showrunners also confirmed that the eighth and final season of the hit show will be the shortest, with only six episodes.

The first six seasons have 10 episodes each, while Season 7 will have seven episodes.

Game Of Thrones Season 7 premieres in Singapore on HBO (StarHub TV Channel 601) on July 17 at 9am, with a same-day encore telecast at 9pm.

Appearances by other musicians

English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran will not be the first musician to make an appearance on Game Of Thrones when he guest stars in Season 7 of the show.

Besides regular cast members such as Carice van Houten (who plays Melisandre), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton) and Raleigh Ritchie (Grey Worm), who have music careers outside of their acting gig, other singers and bands have also had cameo spots on the show.

The minstrels providing the music at King Joffrey Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell's wedding were none other than Icelandic trio Sigur Ros. They are seen singing and playing music before an impatient Joffrey throws coins at them to shoo them off.

The song that they sang, The Rains Of Castamere, acted as foreshadowing for the blood to come in the episode, as it is also the title of the show's famously tragic Red Wedding episode (Season 3, Episode 9).

Northern Irish musician Lightbody, the lead singer of rock band Snow Patrol, is known to be a big fan of Game Of Thrones and has been spotted hanging out with its cast members on the Belfast set.

He got to live the ultimate fanboy dream when he made a cameo in the series as a soldier, who leads northern lord Roose Bolton's men in singing The Bear And The Maiden Fair.

Mastodon (Season 5, Episode 8, Hardhome)

Three of four members of American heavy metal band Mastodon - guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher, and drummer Brann Dailor - appeared in this episode as the wildlings, the feral people who live North of the Wall. During their brief appearance, they get slaughtered by the scary White Walkers.

On his experience on the series, Dailor told online music magazine Pitchfork: "I watched my best friends Brent and Bill murdered right in front of me as I myself was stabbed in the stomach and had my throat slit multiple times and I didn't mind at all... We are more than privileged and honoured to have been a part of one of the greatest stories ever told on film, and the catering wasn't bad either."

Johnson, 69, an English singer and legendary guitarist once associated with rock band Dr. Feelgood in the 1970s, played royal executioner Ser Ilyn Payne - or the mute knight who chopped off Winterfell lord Ned Stark's head.

Reportedly, Johnson was due to appear in more episodes beyond Season 2, but was phased out of the show when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2013.

In October 2014, he was declared cancer-free.

This article was first published on Mar 14, 2017.
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